"Why did you refuse me so coldly? Did you know who I was? Who I am?
It's useless; you're a fool who may have had a famous name but certainly no brain.
I must listen to Father.
I focused on my schoolwork and tried desperately to live up to my name. I refused to be outshined by those inferior to me, the filth that never belonged here.
You were a fool for refusing my extended hand, but then, I am surrounded by fools, always have been, so I could hardly have told the difference.
To my Father and Mother I perpetually asked,
"Haven't I done what you asked me? Good grades, no mingling with riff-raff and all?"
I was what I thought they wanted me to be, but it wasn't enough.
With this disfiguring mark seared into my skin, I was suddenly
spurned by both those who supposedly stood with me and
those who stood against me.
Doomed to complete this unfathomable task alone, and
you, always cutting me off at every turn, knocking me down before I could even try.
I knew it was wrong, and that I didn't have the courage to do it.
But nevertheless, try I did. For mother, for father, for freedom, for respect.
For love. For acceptance.
And then I realized that none of that would ever be mine. I don't deserve it. I should never have done any of this.
I am
sorry.
I tried to express my repentance. I refused to recognize you. I did not see your face. This is the wrong man, I told them.
And then you were free.
And later, you rescued me from the wicked tongue of death that was curling, licking at my heels, and
I was grateful.
I am grateful.
I am pitiful, I am weak, I am cowardly, and
I am grateful.
A life of quiet is the last thing I deserve.
And yet now, by some twist of fate, I have it.
Despite the shadow of pain that looms over me at times, I have it.
Sometimes I still wonder how it would have been if you hadn't refused my extended hand.
Or if, perhaps, we were different people altogether."